capt_oats

His goal against St Mirren was a properly class first time effort as well. Aye, I mean, the games he's been chucked in to start have been pretty tough gigs. Hearts at Tynecastle and Rangers at Ibrox. He got 50 mins off the bench against St Mirren as a replacement for Shaw and scored, won the penalty off the bench against Morton. His only other meaningful minutes were 45 off the bench against Celtic when we were 3-0 down. Other than that it's been 18 mins against Hibs, 27 mins against United and 14 mins against Dundee. Tbh, given his circumstances I wouldn't really have expected him to play much more than that but there's been enough to like from him IMO. Get the wee man in the team and give him a run I say. The full game is up on RTE player and it's interesting to see that he's playing wide right in a 3421/523 sort of shape.

There's the wee man's goal for Ireland's u21s. It's a really smashing finish especially when you see the slow mo of the way the ball's spinning when it lands at him.

Been ages since I had a look at this thread so this may have been mentioned already but the Todd Haynes Velvet Underground documentary that went up on Apple TV is good.

It started on HBO a while back but it's just appeared on Sky Atlantic. Watched the first 4 episodes and it's been hugely enjoyable so far. First episode directed by Adam McKay (Anchorman, The Big Short) and 2nd episode directed by Jonah Hill (Mid 90s).

Tbf, when he signed I don't think anyone actually expected Tierney to come in and be starting every week. He was always someone who'd be "managed" and dropped in and out of the team between him signing in January and the end of the season IMO. So it's a massive eye roll to see some of the takes on Twitter dot com after he scored. Having said that, I think we're probably in a position now where we'd be as well just playing our best team and seeing what happens. Get the wee man in the team.

Man of the match anaw. He looks like he's been playing wide right.

He seems to be an actual winger going by the write up Bohs gave him. Given his age it's probably up for debate what he actually is ie: is he for the first team in the same way as Tierney (the announcement was a First team thing) or Reserves with a view to developing (are the Reserves even really a thing any more). I'd have thought he'd be more a replacement for Amaluzor than Roberts I notice that the story on the official doesn't mention that he's been in training with us for a while. The Record mentioned in their story that he'd been photographed back in February and I seem to remember a it was mentioned by someone who knows these things that we had a few in at that point.

Same agency that reps Darragh O'Connor. Having a look though yer man's TL they seem to have a ton of Irish players on their books (including @RandomGuy.'s boy Dawson Devoy).

That was pretty much my point...

Well, the suggestion was that he didn't know. So...

Devoy signed a new deal quite recently although only to the end of this season (I'd be very up for us signing him tbf).

If true it means he definitely doesn't read Dundee's press as it was reported as one of the reasons that Nelms vetoed the idea of McGhee coming in to assist McCann. Maybe he forgot? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tbh, I wouldn't disagree with any of that. Also...

This is actually pretty much where I am tbh. Like I say, both things can be true. He can have annoyed Alexander and been benched but also we actually won a game (remember when that was a thing) without him in the team so I can see why Alexander would give those 3 a run in the side (which he did).

The Slattery thing is something that's just grown arms and legs. Is it possible there's been a fall-out? Sure. I'd imagine there are fall outs at pretty much every fitba club going. Has he been frozen out? No. He's been in every match day squad since the break and made an appearance off the bench as recently as the Dundee game on 5th March. For a bit of context, his last start was the 2-0 loss at Tannadice on the 9th of February. He was subbed off after 63 mins. He had started 3 of the previous 4 before that (started against Hearts, St Mirren and Celtic. Came off the bench against Morton in the SC). Our next game he started on the bench and...we won. It was February 12th and it was the 2-1 in the Cup against Aberdeen. He was on the bench against Aberdeen (1-1) and Rangers (2-2). The starting midfield in both of the b2b Aberdeen games was Donnelly, O'Hara, Goss. The Rangers game Goss dropped out for Cornelius so it was Donnelly, O'Hara, Cornelius. The County and Dundee games it was back to Donnelly, O'Hara, Goss. Hear me out here as it's a wild shout but is it possible that Alexander wasn't happy with Slattery in the United game, gave someone else a shot to start, we got a positive result out it so he's rightly or wrongly went with other options in the team while sections of our support fall over themselves to get their tinfoil hats out?

Agree with @thisGRAEME's post above re: Kelly. Equally Celtic's 4th and Dundee's goal the other week are solid examples of us being both incredibly unlucky and shite. I'd be more inclined to ask whether fucking around with the midfield in the way we have is an issue for giving up chances rather than it necessarily being a reflection on Kelly. To break down the goals we've conceded; 2 OG (Johansen vs County, Mugabi vs Rangers) 2 penalties (County x2) 3 individual errors (McGinley vs County, Shaw vs Hearts, O'Donnell vs Dundee) Which leaves another 12 (of which 1 is that absolutely ludicrous goal that Maeda scored). Without going through each individually it's tough to think of any that you'd put down to Kelly any more than defensive issues in front of him IMO.

Since I've nothing better to do I was curious to see how the same numbers compared for Alexander's 18 league games in charge last season. Average shots per game = 9.94 / On target = 3.27 Average shots conceded per game = 14.88 / On target = 4.61 Total shots = 179 (59 OT) Goals scored = 22 Conversion rate = 12.29% (37.2%) Total shots against = 268 (83 OT) Goals conceded = 24 Conversion rate = 8.95% (28.91%) So there you have it, it was much closer to the period of this season up to the break. Although again it's worth bearing in mind that we took the lead in 10 of those 18 games compared with 11 of the 20 up to the break this season and only 1 of 11 since the break. It suggests that whatever fuckery Alexander has been up to since the winter break has left us far less efficient in terms of converting chances (despite taking more shots at goal) and less effective defensively despite facing fewer shots on average than either of these 2 other periods.

Has a conversion rate of 17% and shot accuracy of 52%...

I know shots on goal is an entirely useless metric because there's no context but indulge me for a second. Here are our league fixtures for the season with shots on goal (on target) and shots against (on target) per stats provided by the BBC. Ours are the first numbers, the opposition 2nd. I've also included the conversion rates pre and post-break below. Average shots per game pre-break = 9.95 / On target = 3.6 Average shots per game post-break = 12.1 / On target = 3.27 Average shots conceded per game pre-break = 15.5 / On target = 5.4 Average shots conceded per game post-break = 10.27 / On target = 3.72 Total shots pre-break = 199 (72 OT) Goals scored = 25 Conversion rate = 12.56% (34.7%) Total shots post-break = 134 (36 OT) Goals scored = 7 Conversion rate = 5.22% (19.4%) Total shots against pre-break = 310 (108 OT) Goals conceded = 27 Conversion rate = 8.70% (25%) Total shots against post-break = 113 (41 OT) Goals conceded = 19 Conversion rate = 16.8% (46.3%) So since the break we're actually averaging more shots per game (albeit marginally less on target) but not scoring which suggests that we're not creating as high % chances (combined with the whole Tony Watt fucking off situation). We're also averaging fewer shots on our goal than we were but conceding more...the opposition have coverted 46.3% (that's FORTY SIX POINT THREE PERCENT) of their shots on target. Fwiw, I get that the numbers stand to reason on account of us having gone behind in most games since the break so it means we've been chasing but still...

Tbh, I've no strong thoughts or feelings on whether we have/haven't scored an arbitrary number of goals in a game. Ngl, if we were consistently winning games 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1 through the season I'd be just fine with that. That said, I found it amusing that Alexander mentioned that most games in the league had been close this season. Precisely because he's making the choice to shut up shop when we went 2-0 up. Anyway what's interesting to me is that we've gone from scoring 1.25 goals per game and conceding 1.35 up the the break to only scoring 0.63 gpg but conceding 1.72. So our goals scored has gone down and goals conceded has gone up...I'm no tactical genius but that seems a problem. Fwiw, the only team to have scored fewer than us since the break has been Maloneyball's Hibs and we've conceded more than any team in the league in the same period.

Sure. We've since scored 7 but conceded 19...

Nah, the Brophy game is purely at Bobby Madden's door. First giving the soft pen then his nonsense re-take. Also, we're scored more than Hibs, we've scored more than United and one fewer than Livi. We're entirely mid-table when it comes to goals scored.

That response to the open letter is some proper gaslighting tbh. "Remember what it used to be like before we came along" There's an implication that fans are only complaining because results have been poor and to me, as an outsider, the stuff they seem to want a pat on the back for are the sort of things that fans of other clubs of a similar size to Dundee would be expecting as a bare minimum from their owners. I mean, they've sorted out training facilities for the first team and they get on with other clubs and the league's governing body? Well done...